This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
The idea of the book was first floated at a conference at the East African Institute of Social Research in Kampala which I did not attend as I was half-way up a mountain on the eastern border of Uganda. However, I subsequently discussed the proposal with Jim Bohannan whose wife was undertaking field-work not far from my field-work area. We also talked about it later when back in Britain, the Bohannans in Oxford and me in Cambridge. There was an idea that I might co-edit with him but as I was nose down writing my Ph D. thesis I wriggled out of the commitment.
This is still the case in many places.
The cultural uniformity of classes and regions in Europe may well have been assumed in Durkheim’s work although he recognised some differences such as that of religion, but this point cannot be dealt with here.
G.M. Wilson was a Government anthropologist in Kenya, whose paper was recruited for the book by Bohannan.
With exception of the articles by Dabbagh and Picone who both consider altruistic suicide. Both articles reduce the incidence of altruistic suicide to something exceptional.
As Bohannan pointed out (1960, p. 11) Westernarck had mentioned the possibility of this type of suicide in 1912 but Jeffrey’s article was based on research in West Africa.
We are not told what the danger consists of.
Traditional religious views are not more likely to be considered in this context.
It does not seem that Joluo men are less plagued by status problems nor that Jolou women’s domestic situation is very much worse than elsewhere. However, there is the indication that women suffer notably from men’s violence and that their suicides are sometimes murders of which their husbands are guilty.
References
Bohannan, P.J. (ed) 1960 African Homicide and Suicide. Princeton University Press, London.
Briffault, R. 1927 The Mothers, Vol. II. Macmillan, New York.
Cavan, R.S, 1928 Suicide. Chicago University Press, Chicago.
Durkheim, E. 1897. Le Suicide: étude de sociologie. Paris: Alcan.
Jeffreys, M.D.W. 1952 ‘Samsonic Suicide or Suicide of Revenge among Africans’ African Studies (Vol. xi), pp. 118–122.
La Fontaine, J.S. 1981 The Domestication of the Savage Male. Man (n.s.) (Vol. 16), pp. 30–34.
La Fontaine, J.S. 1960 Gisu Homicide and Suicide. In Bohannan, P.J. (ed) African Homicide and Suicide. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Malinowski, B. 1926 Crime and Custom in Savage Society. Kegan Paul, London.
Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 2002 Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Owens, C, and H Lambert, et al. 2008 Tales of Biographical Disintegration: How Parents Make Sense of Their Sons’ Suicides. Sociology of Health & Illness 30: 237–254.
Perlin, S. (ed.) 1975 A Handbook for the Study of Suicide. Oxford University Press, New York.
Southall, A. 1960 Homicide and Suicide among the Alur. In Bohannan, P.J. (ed) African Homicide and Suicide. Princeton University Press, pp. 214–229.
Steinmetz, S.R. 1894 ‘Suicide among Primitive Peoples’ American Anthropologist (Vol. vii), pp. 53–60.
Westermarck,E. 1908 Suicide, A Chapter in Comparative Ethics. Sociological Review 1:12-33.
Wilson, G.M. 1960 Homicide and Suicide among the Joluo of Kenya. In Bohannan, P.J. (ed) African Homicide and Suicide. Princeton University Press, pp. 179–213.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
La Fontaine, J. Explaining Suicide: An Afterword. Cult Med Psychiatry 36, 409–418 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9256-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9256-0